The Culling is a perfect example of the underrepresented battle royale genre that I’ve been dying to play more of. Even though a lot of The Culling’s design is borrowed from the Battle Royale and Hunger Games movies, its distinct personality and focus makes this Early Access a strong contender.
The Culling
Developer: Xaviant
Price: $14.99 (Early Access)
MonsterVine was provided a PC code for preview.
Previewed with an i5-4690k & GTX 970 with 16GB RAM.
Like other games of its kind, The Culling is a brutal game. Set in an enclosed section of a tropical island, The Culling is a 16 player fight to the death where only one can survive. The harrowing experience begins in a small metal box. Your breathing increases as the countdown nears zero, and then pop, the walls of the box open up and you’re alone, exposed and with nothing.
Unlike the Hunger Games, there is no “Cornucopia,” no centralized loot-filled extravaganza that creates an initial blood bath and rewards the few that survive. In The Culling players start with truly nothing, unless you’ve got a special perk, and at this point the game becomes an arms race.
Frantically players search the ground for sticks or structures for shreds of loot varying from stat inducing drugs to weaponry to F.U.N.C. points. For those of you wondering, F.U.N.C. is The Culling’s in-game point system that can be found or earned and is used for crafting items, unlocking weapon containers, calling in air drops or utilizing health dispensaries. Most players will start with the basics. Contestants often start dropping by use of primitive spears, bows, hatchets and knives while the more intelligent of the bunch have most likely crafted armor and are looting the abandoned structures that are scattered across the jungle landscape.
Each kill during the roughly 20 minute match is broadcasted by both the announcer and the in-game leaderboards. And by in-game I mean literally in the game world, if you look in the sky or on the wall of most interiors you will see a detailed leaderboard detailing who’s dead, who’s alive and who killed who. Even though the score in the sky is an extremely cool feature, the announcer is my favorite aspect of the game. Quick to comment with witty phrases, the live announcer often describes what should be a gruesome death in a humorous manner. After fending off an assailant with my trusty hatchet, I’m greeted with a pleasant voice, “There’s an axe murderer on the island. It’s you!” The other aspect that really makes the deathmatches feel like episodes of a game show are the randomized events that occur, as they are truly different from one another and each have their own unique benefits and challenges.
Most of the weapons in The Culling are quite primitive. Through looting or the dangerously visible air drops players can receive enhanced, modernized versions of simple weaponry. Weapons generally fall under the category of ranged, melee or traps. Ranged weapons like the Bow and the Blowdart can be useful when wanting to avoid confrontation, but they require patience and do little damage. Melee weapons provide much quicker kills, but put the user directly in danger and most of the time the better player will walk away despite the weapons at play. Traps can be extremely satisfying, but are difficult to use as they require a player to spring them. Guns are also present in The Culling, but I’ve only seen two while playing and both times my survivor met a quick end shortly after. Firearms are extremely rare and powerful, and often turn the tide of the match. There are also supplementary items that are vital to survival like the man-tracker, backpacks and armor.
What is perhaps The Culling’s most satisfying trait is its features. Player customization, class modification, player progress and cosmetic items are all here and provide a much needed reason to keep coming back. As you level up you earn new and interesting perks, but none of which are so powerful as to make the rounds unfair for those with only the beginner perks. The ability to make your own classes, each with their own distinct character is very welcome, and makes switching your playstyle easier than most games.
The Culling is in Early Access, meaning that it is unfinished and currently in development. Luckily, this largely boils down to optimization and performance issues alone. In the various rounds I played I saw very few bugs and a single surface that was untextured. The game ran flawlessly on my personal PC rig, but was less than playable on my 2013 Razer Blade. Despite this, The Culling is an extremely polished and feature rich battle royale style game with personality that will provide hours upon hours of brutal fun. I absolutely recommend that you check out this game.
